In the yard of my growing up home in Southern California there were many flowers and trees and a lawn for lying on our backs and watching the clouds go by. Still now at age 86, my mother is completely content tending to flowers and gardening. We always had freshly bouquets in the house. Outdoors, I loved the colors and smells and spent many hours alone or with friends playing hide and seek amongst the shrubs or watching it all from a tree house built by my dad. However, there was a fig tree that struggled for life every year. Mother didn't plant it. It was there when we moved into the house in 1954. Behind the garage and squeezed between a walkway and the cement base for an old clothesline, it had very little good soil to grow in. Though it was watered somewhat regularly it never looked very healthy. Short, for a fig tree, with only four or five skinny branches without many leaves, each year it would sprout a few figs. I loved them! Pink and purple inside, there was nothing better for breakfast than fresh figs peeled and cut, covered by just a little milk - whole milk or half and half. So I would watch for the green figs to show and check them every day as they grew and changed color. Then, invariably, when I knew they were almost ready to pick, I would come out one morning for the harvest and find a big blue jay had beat me to the few struggling fruit. What a disappointment! Still hanging there, the figs would be open and most of the meat gone. One year I attached strips of aluminum foil to each branch hoping to scare away the birds but they just laughed at me and claimed the figs as their own. That tree never grew much taller but was there throughout my childhood, never cut down but also never bearing much fruit.

I had no idea what a fig tree could really grow to be until last Saturday when I visited Dorothy Nordstrand, our organist emeritus. She is currently staying in a comfortable group home in Terra Linda. As I stepped out into the back patio with her, I saw a huge fig tree, taller than the house, full of large leaves and many new green figs. Dottie, in her wonderful humor, made a quick joke about how Adam and Even might have looked wearing those leaves. There were squirrels running up and down the branches and birds rousting here and there. Under the long, shady arms of the tree there was plenty of room for a patio table with several chairs around it. We sat and visited for some time feeling almost engulfed by the healthy, well-cared for, generously giving tree. I was so comfortable and cool there listening to the birds that I felt as if I could stay all day.

In today's parable read by Kirk, Jesus tells of two people who were seriously interested in a young fig tree. The first was the man who owned the property. Primarily grapes were grown on his land but several years before he had a fig tree planted hoping to enjoy the fruit. The second was the man who cared for the plants. He was the vinedresser or gardener. Though he worked for the landowner, either as a servant or for pay, the health of the crop was dependent upon the worker's skill, knowledge and attention much more than that of the landowner. In a commanding voice, the first man said, "For three years now I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and finding none. Cut it down: why should it be wasting the soil?" Respectfully, the gardener responded, "Sir, leave it one more year and give me time to dig round it and manure it; it may bear fruit next year."

Now, according to my consultant, Phil Economon, church member and retired specialist in fruits and vegetables for the state of California, fig trees are not difficult to grow when cared for properly. They grow in many climates and are known as the "poor man's fruit" because the trees produce so many figs. There are at least two healthy crops each year. Like grapes, figs are full of sugar and in the Mediterranean area they are especially high in sugar, delicious to eat and good for drying as grapes are. What the landowner might not have known but surely the gardener did is that when starting a fig tree from a cutting, it takes three of four years before the tree bears fruit. The gardener was patient and caring knowing it was likely that the tree would mature in just one more year. The fig leaves have patterns on them that differ based on what nutrient the plant might be missing. The gardener may also have been watching the leaves and knew what he needed to add to the manure to strengthen the tree for its first year of fruit. He then turned the command back to the landowner when he said, "If the tree doesn't bear fruit next year, then you can cut it down." The gardener didn't commit to cutting down the tree himself the following year but left the decision and the cutting to the landowner. After my opportunity to sit in the shade of the big fig tree in Dottie's garden, I wondered if the vinedresser in this story might also have enjoyed mid-day breaks from his work tending the grapevines, breaks away from the hot sun sitting in the shade of that beautiful tree he had nurtured for three years and come to know as a good friend. He would certainly enjoy the fresh figs if the tree bore fruit the following year but regardless, he would very well have known the value of the tree for his own shade and for squirrels and birds that would also call it home. He clearly did not want to cut the tree down but to give it one more chance.

In Guatemala, there are many people who have been given one more chance thanks to the inspiration and love of a Franciscan gardener 400 years ago. In Antigua, there is an orphanage/hospital for adults and children of all ages. Permanent residents number 400 and are people who have no family or whose family members don't have the resources to care for their basic needs. Older ladies sit in a wide, sun-filled corridor watching and smiling at passersby. A young man waves and calls out from the central courtyard filled with sweet-scented rose bushes. His crooked fingers reach through the gate welcoming a squeeze and touch from nuns and medical staff as they quickly walk by. The middle-aged man know as the "watchman" looks husky and strong as he sits in a wheelchair with a tray of screws and dials carefully moving the parts with tiny tools to recreate a working timepiece. Then there are the children, some running free but many, both big and small, confined to cribs or stroller chairs that are kept clean and cool — children who might not be able to see or hear but grin and turn when touched gently, hungry for the contact with volunteer visitors. Currently, neither families nor the government of this struggling nation can care for all the children and adults who need special attention. Because of mental or physical disability, they can't bear the fruit society expects from them. With the limited resources, this is a time when they easily could be cut down from lack of needed attention and care, but instead Obras Sociales Hermano Pedro Hospital and Orphanage steps in and gives them one more chance. The complex that fills a city block is always in a state of rebuilding. It is run by the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church and is the focal point of Westminster's annual surgical and medical mission effort. The inspiration and originator of the hospital/orphanage is Hermano Pedro Betancourt who, like the worker in Jesus' parable, reached out and cared for those who might otherwise have been cut down. The story told about him is that he came to Guatemala from Cuba in the mid-seventeenth century, young and uneducated, and was befriended by the Jesuits and Franciscans in the area. He attended a Jesuit College in hopes of becoming a priest but was unable to keep up academically. Accepted as a helper in the Franciscan order, he worked as a gardener and a janitor. Several years later in a small hut located not far from the current hospital site, Betancourt founded a hospital for the poor. He became known for physically picking up the sick and abandoned in the streets, those who desperately needed one more chance, and carrying them in his arms or on his back to the hospital. He often roamed the streets ringing a bell asking for donations to feed and clothe those in his care. His work goes on today as the Franciscans together with medical volunteers from many traditions and nationalities, Presbyterian, Methodist, Jewish, and others, work with Guatemalans to offer one more chance to indigenous families who suffered greatly from the country's civil war. Last week, many Guatemalans celebrated as Hermano Pedro Betancourt was canonized by Pope John Paul II as the first Guatemalan saint.

We live in a utilitarian society that is more like the landowner in Jesus' parable than like the gardener. What good is a fig tree that doesn't bear figs? What good are we if we are not always accomplishing something? There are expectations put upon us by others and many that we bring on ourselves. It can be exhausting trying to bear all the fruit that we feel that we should bear in life: fulfilling our responsibilities and being creative in our careers, caring for aging parents in ways that meet needs but also respect independence, parenting to protect and nurture our children but also encouraging them to take risks to grow into their own person, volunteering to support the church, the schools, and other important projects supporting issues of justice, and certainly making the critical time to be with our loved ones — spouse, family members, and special friends. We know there are times that we fail our own expectations becoming angry, short-tempered, and unpleasant to be around when we disappoint others and ourselves. It is so hard for us not to measure our personal worth on the fruit we bear, the things we do, and yet God loves us just as we are. Again and again, God kneels down and aerates the soil around our lives nurturing and strengthening us to bear the fruit that is needed. Kathleen Norris, in her wonderful book Amazing Grace, tells of a time she watched an infant at an airport departure gate. "The baby was staring intently at other people, and as soon as he recognized a human face, no matter whose it was, no matter if it was young or old, pretty or ugly, bored or happy or worried-looking he would respond with absolute delight."¹ That is how God searches for us and looks at us in absolute delight knowing that we are made in God's image and fully believing that "it is good." Today, Jesus welcomes us, completely accepted just as we are, to his table of God's love and grace to be nourished one more time from the bread and the vine. It is not always easy for us to accept that unconditional grace-filled acceptance but it is offered to us. As the gardener in the parable cared lovingly for the figless tree by digging around it and feeding it; as Hermano Pedro's legacy continues to care for the lovely and the unlovely; and as the irresistible gift of a baby's smile feeds our souls, God's love is not conditional on the fruit we bear but God gives us one more chance to grow - again and again and again.